Header Ads

Bolton’s broadside

Balance of Power
Bloomberg

In 2016 it was Russia. In 2020 it may be China.

As November's election draws closer, U.S. President Donald Trump finds himself accused by a former senior adviser of "pleading" with President Xi Jinping for help winning the farm vote via increased Chinese purchases of American soybeans and wheat.

Trump responded by claiming John Bolton, a noted hawk during his time as national security adviser, broke the law with the release of portions of his memoir. He called him a "washed-up guy" and "a disgruntled boring fool who only wanted to go to war."

Even so, the episode described by Bolton as taking place in Japan last year may play into the hands of opponents who say Trump has been too chummy over the years with Xi and too late to call out China on things like human rights. It could feed suspicion that Trump says one thing about Beijing in public and another in private.

Trump did get into a trade war with China. And he's thumped Xi for his handling of Covid-19. But he's also often spoken admiringly of the Chinese leader. He's keenly aware of the sway Beijing has over the U.S. economy and thus at least some of his election fortunes. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo met his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi yesterday in Hawaii, where the two pledged renewed cooperation.

The apparent dichotomy in Trump's China ties was on display yesterday when he signed a measure punishing Chinese officials for imprisoning more than one million Muslims. That came minutes after newspaper excerpts of Bolton's book alleged that Trump in fact encouraged Xi to build the internment camps for Uighurs, calling it the right thing to do.

Rosalind Mathieson

Bolton with Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in 2019.

Photographer: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg

Tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net.

Global Headlines

Police bill | Senate Republicans will try to start debate next week on legislation to overhaul U.S. policing practices after the death of George Floyd, with a focus on de-escalation training, the increased use of body cameras, and making lynching a federal crime. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the plan needed "dramatic improvement." Democrats intend to bring their own plan to the House floor next week.

Macron and awe | Boris Johnson meets visiting French President Emmanuel Macron today, the U.K. prime minister's first bilateral with a European Union leader since calling for fresh momentum to secure a post-Brexit trade deal. The U.K. plans a "shock and awe" information campaign to prepare companies for the split from the EU at the end of the year, bidding to reduce economic disruption by focusing on the consequences of not taking preparatory actions.

Territorial battle | Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed India will defend its sovereignty after clashes along its contested border with China that killed 20 Indian troops and left an unknown number of Chinese casualties. Each side blamed the other for initiating the clashes but confirmed talks between senior military commanders are underway to lower the temperature in the Himalayan border conflict that's been brewing for weeks.

Troubled waters | Egypt and Ethiopia have been in negotiations for almost a decade to resolve a dispute over a massive dam on the Nile. Those talks over their relative share of a common watercourse broke down late yesterday. As Marc Champion and David Wainer report, for all the public focus on technical issues such as dam fill rates, at root this is a struggle for control of Africa's longest river — the region's most important water source — in an age of climate change.

The Blue Nile river as it passes through the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on Dec. 26, 2019.

Photographer: Eduardo Soteras/AFP

Testing time | President Xi, who declared himself personally responsible for every aspect of China's response to the coronavirus pandemic, is facing a fresh test: a rapidly growing outbreak in Beijing. The cluster of more than 130 cases in the city that's the seat of Communist Party power risks undermining the government's narrative that it handled the epidemic better than many western nations and could upset its nascent economic recovery.

  • The top decision-making body of China's legislature begins deliberations today on controversial national security legislation to be imposed on Hong Kong, in a last-minute change to its public agenda.

What to Watch

  • Trump's nomination of a senior adviser as a candidate for the presidency of Latin America's most important development bank surprised even close allies because it would mean breaking an unwritten tradition that someone from the region leads the institution.
  • NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the U.S. assured its alliance partners that it would consult them on changes to the deployment of American troops in Europe after a plan to cut their numbers in Germany sowed confusion.
  • Germany extended its social distancing rules and a ban on large gatherings after a handful of coronavirus outbreaks rekindled fears of a possible second wave of the pandemic.
  • The Trump administration will join Fortress Investment Group in a California court today in an antitrust fight with Apple and Intel in which billions of dollars in patent royalties are at stake.
  • Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban lost a fight with the EU as the bloc's highest court said today a law targeting foreign-funded non-governmental organizations and groups linked to financier George Soros violated its standards.

And finally ... Civilians in southern Tripoli are returning to homes ransacked by fighters loyal to eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar and trying to rebuild lives shattered by his failed 430-day campaign to capture the Libyan capital. But as Mohammed Abdusamee reports, Libya's civil war is far from over, and there's mounting concern the OPEC producer could go the way of Syria, prompting new waves of migration and militancy on Europe's doorstep.

A resident walks in the rubble of a damaged house in Tripoli.

Photographer: Mahmud Turkia/AFP





 

No comments